Jupiter's Legacy Review

First issue, while not available digitally upon it's release was an enjoyable read. What was Mark Millar(guy who wrote Kick-Ass and Ultimate X-men) thinking? He was thinking, damn this is a great book I hope people enjoy it in the paper format! Besides it's antiquated political undertones this book was enjoyable for being a cape comic. It's delivery was perfect, and not short on information to setup the series in the long run. A lot of first issues about super-heroes leave you wanting. This one conveyed it's general idea quickly and precisely in it's first issue. I say bravo to that!
The general idea is this; some people in the 30's searching for an answer to the woes of the depression and America's hardships venture to an island foreseen in the dreams of Sheldon Sampson. They are delivered there and blessed with being the first super-heroes of their age. Fast-forward to the present and their descendants have totally misconstrued their parent's values. Abusing their powers for fame and endorsements, while the regular people fall to the whims of the government's failing economy and even super-villains they could care less about fighting. The story seems to follow the idea of Robert Kirkman's(Walking Dead) Invincible, but makes it much more adult in it's tone. I'm not bashing Invincible, but it always felt a bit too corny for what I read. The idea of what real super-heroes in a real world setting is nothing new, but this felt inventive enough to be a good start to an endearing story.
On the flip-side it could also end up being a horrible story where people's values are washed away to make way for the superior beings and controlled by them in a police-state fashion to earn a dishonest Utopia. Which we've seen plenty of in comics (Evil Superman for President!). I don't think it will be long before we get this answer since two brothers who have opposing views on the current government structures are already butting heads towards a meltdown. I see one becoming a villain and the other standing by the current regime and believing that the people can work it out for themselves and not fail. These two brothers are two of the first people to go to the island, and one of them happens to be Sheldon Sampson.
A nice cliffhanger ends the book, I won't spoil it, but it does involve one of the degenerate children. A child who sounds so yuppy I wish I could squish her like Galactus on a bad day, or good depending on your outlook of Galactus. It's a good read, I advise everyone to check it out!

Suggested Listening

Daredevil is Awesome

DD was confirmed back in the hands of Marvel Studios today, by Kevin Feige: here's an article about it. Daredevil has recently become one of my favorite characters and books from Marvel. Mark Waid's run really had a lot to do with this. Whether it's saving blind kids from a wrecked bus ontop of a snowy mountain, or making the reader hate Foggy Nelson and then make you feel bad you did. Daredevil recently has been a pound for pound great superhero book. The art is top-notch and much like Fraction's Hawkeye fits well with the type of story we're reading.

Last week Daredevil #25 was my favorite book that came out. Hence why I didn't really write a pull-list bit. The new villain they introduced and his shocking twist towards the end just made me happy. Even his design and attitude feels like a callback to Frank Miller's run on the book. Ninjas are cool again. I really want to know where we go next on this crazy roller coaster known as Matt Murdock's Melancholy Life. The turns and reels of emotion when he falls and then comes back to triumph are perfect comic book mechanics. That's why I'm saying it now DD is my favorite current on-going book. I may do a top-ten of this in the future... So uh, spoilers.
Ideas of how to introduce Daredevil into the Marvel movie universe? Someone on Reddit had a great idea for street level hero movies eventually combining in a New Avengers movie. I like this, and also this would give a good home for the Dr. Strange movie coming out soon. Iron Fist, DD, and Hawkeye on the same screen?! Yes please.

Suggested Listening Red Batman approved.

Batman and Robin's Prof. Pyg Versus Beware the Batman's

So Beware the Batman is coming out soon. One of their villains has no chance in hell of being true to it's bone. That poor bastard is Professor Pyg! First gracing his smug oinks in Grant Morrison's post Bruce death Batman and Robin series. He did become something of a significant villain with the first three issues. His hack and slash attitude, and poetic non-sense leads him to a combination of the Mad Hatter and The Joker of insane crack cocaine. He literally carved the faces of his child victims off and replaced them with faces of that he felt suited his life all the whilst quoting Darwin's Origin of Species.

Oink, Oinkety, Oinkety, Oink

How in the 9 levels of Hell could this character possibly translate to a cartoon presented by Cartoon Network's series Beware the Batman?! I have no clue, but I do intend to show you how it will not work. It even makes Damian Wayne vomit with rage! I have to say I do understand the need to re-invigorate new readers/viewers of Batman with villains that are contemporary  but maybe Pyg isn't the right choice... Oink Oinkety, Oinkety, Oink. I mean I could understand Black Mask who is featured in "Under the Red Hood" a movie I really liked, but still not suitable for children under the age of 12? He could be re-worked to fit the mold and break away from the Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, and Mr. Freeze.
Regardless of that this villain was introduced after Bruce's death, post Final Crisis. Which means the first Batman to face him was Dick Grayson, and his Boy Wonder, Damian Wayne. Maybe I should say Robin, and Batman the Boy Wonder... Even if eventually Damian grew to respect Dick, the man who taught him how to be nicer than just wanting to fight justice and for his father's memory. Nothings ever good enough!

Pre-Boston, He'd been there though.

Back to the poor children, seriously that's what Pyg does... He takes their faces and replaces them. Essentially he's just a bat-crazy(heh) individual with a penchant for saws and surgery. I really can't see how they pull this off like a poor child's face, on Cartoon Network. Professor Pyg is going to be the worst villain on that channel since they cancelled Young Justice and the Green Lantern Animated Series on the same day. Whoever that guy is serisously, I want to shank you. I wanted a Young Justice VS. Darkseid as much as I wanted Wolverine and the X-men's show heroes fighting Apocalypse. Sheesh. Channel Executives are sometimes un-caring to us fans...
I don't know how they'll handle Lazlo Valentin and his "Pig Pen", but I know it can't be regarded as a great endeavor. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. The Le Cirque D'Entrange continues without me.

Thanks

Yeap, so uh... A suggested listening is what you'd want here right? Well while re-reading Batman & Robin 1-3 and thinking about writing this article I was to listening the new Fall Out Boy CD. Yeah, that may sound gay, but meh. They grew on me and aside their recent "Light It Up" song, I have to say half their new CD isn't terribad, and I like that song a lot. I'm sure you've heard that already a lot, so let's do something different this week. The Pheonix? Oh Jean Grey!

Suggested Listening Oh Yay videos are now a regular thing! Thanks Youtube! Now imagine Prof. Pyg disco dancing to this song...

Action Comics New 52 1-8

I just recently finished reading the first arch of Action Comics for the New 52. It's written by Grant Morrison, and I've expressed my interest in him before on this blog, so I don't see any reason to re-hash said interest. His work on this book is pretty great in my opinion. Not excellent or bad, just great. I'm sad that he left after issue 18, and that after his tenure with Batman INC. he will be leaving cape comics for a while(I read this somewhere, not sure where though). After the reboot, Superman needed a fresh take, I think it was prominently delivered with this title. I like that we get not one but multiple villains origins in this run. Metallo's is great, and also gave us the birth of the new Steel. Lex's xenophobic sensibility is prevalent through the first arch, even if he sides with another alien in order to remove Superman. The collector of Worlds/Brainiac... Internet? Plays the main villain throughout, and did what he always does to Kal-El, torture his friends and city. Jimmy plays the perfect best-friend in this series while Lois is... well Lois, and not much more. The Legion of Superheroes short story in the middle did distract, but I still enjoyed the story it presented. I liked the idea of a Tesseract being in his brain, regardless of how it got there(a bullet...). This allowed his villains to enter there with Kryptonite. It's something I would've never thought of, and something that the writers of Dr. Who should look into. "The Tardis... it's well, it's inside your head Doctor." Awesome!

All in all I recommend reading it, at least just issues 1-4, and then 7-8. The Legion issue is 6 if you want to check out that Tesseract story. 5 is just baby Kal-El riding his ship to Earth and being saved by the Kents, with some slightly depressing undertones. The latter to which I listened to Rocket Man by Elton John, which I guess would be the suggested listening for this piece. I plan to finish Morrison's run, and then check out Andy Diggle's issue((s?)He wrote Green Arrow: Year One which I liked). Scott Lobdell will be taking over the book after that and I think I'll give his first issue a look-see. He however is writing almost every other Superman book, and I've heard those are pretty bad.

I still can't wait for Batman/Superman, I hope it's great. Especially after that last bit at the end of Batman 19, which I thought was the best part of that book.

Suggested Listening

They Avengered it out of me!

Left to Right
Black Widow, Mockingbird, Spider-Woman

Hawkeye 9 was pretty good, continuing the events from the last issue the tree ex-lovers of Clint Barton, Black Widow, Mockingbird, and Spider-Woman all go about finding Hawkguy and finishing what seems to be an awful Valentine's day for him. Good old Kate, with her Lolita movie poster on her bedroom wall is confronted by the trio. It's at this point that it may seem that Matt Fraction wants us to believe Kate and Clint might have a thing. Even if it's one-sided. Considering her a fourth in the "affairs" of Hawkeye. Mockingbird and Hawkeye's marriage is finally put out to sea, as he finalizes the divorce papers, and some bro's get beaten up. Then some guy comes up and shoots a fan-favorite of the book in the head, Oh no... Oh da.

Why is Bruce Wayne pointing a gun at Jim Gordon on the cover of Batman 19? Better yet, why is he robbing a bank. Oh it's Clayface. That's dumb. I was hoping it was Hush, or Bruce finally lost his marbles after Damian's recent death. Nope just Clayface, and he's "evolved". Seriously this book is starting to go down the pooper. It was really good, and one of the best at the start of the whole New 52, but it seems like Snyder has gotten lazy with his recent acclaim and is pumping out slop monthly with the title. That slop just happens to look like Clayface, sigh...

Poink!

I like how Bendis is essentially writing a weekly X-men books even if it has two titles. After the events in All New X-men where Cyclops comes to the Jean Grey school, and offers the students an alternative. We see that the Stepford Cuckoo's are a dominant telepath over Emma now, and Cyclops gets Goldballed. Also past Angel joins present-time's Cyclop's team. Where does the story go from now? Magik is having troubles controlling her powers now, just like Cyke and Emma.

More stuff to come this weekend. Hope you enjoyed this. Also, Apple is dumb, and stupid.

Suggested Listening: Neko Case - I Wish I Was The Moon

Age of Ultron 1-4+

So there are currently two major events or cross-overs going on in the Marvel universe right now. One of them happens to have Ultron in a future dystopian world he won. Spidey is running around without a shirt, and Hawkeye is killing people with a crossbow. All while Captain America sulks that he doesn't have a plan, and Tony Stark is still a pretentious paranoid individual. Also, Luke Cage says sweet Christmas. Yeap this is Brian Michael Bendis writing about the Avengers.
Now let me speak about the good parts of this "Maxi-Series". First things first, Taskmaster is awesome, even without his cape. Hawkguy is awesome, and I hope to god, Franklin Richards is awesome. We finally get Bendis' impression of how Spidey-Ock would handle things... with his ego. I know Bendis didn't write the tie-in for Superior Spider-man, but he is lead creative officer on the event. I think he is anyways, it's hard to tell after his awesome work with X-men. Age of Ultron isn't awful, it's just slow. I did really enjoy the tie-ins so far, which is odd. I usually don't care too much for tie-ins, because they deviate other books from their point.
However, thank you Marvel for doing something right for a change with your big events. Instead of the usual de-railing of a book's main story to tie-in to a big event, they have instead decided to do one-shot stand-alone stories that don't interrupt the flow of the source book. I hope this is a practice that catches on as they continue with the new Marvel NOW. 
So who is Ultron? He's this robot with A.I. that was created by Hank Pym, or as you know him better; Giant-man, Ant-man I, and Yellow Jacket. He developed him for the Avengers as an assistant and, soldier when things got crazy. He however has become one of the Avenger's number one villains. He has this bad habit of continually popping up, even after being thought dead for a good while. He even branches out to the cosmic universe of Marvel in Annihilation: Conquest by fusing with the Phanlanx. He's one of the top 5 villains in the Marvel Universe right after Doom, and Thanos. Yeah, he's a pretty big deal.

I guess I'll come back to this event when it's 8 issues in, or I don't and just leave you hanging on my thoughts of the series as a whole.

Suggested Listening: Placebo's "For What It's Worth"

Top-Ten Marvel Cosmic Heroes

So this is a blog and most blogs have top what-ever's. My first top what-ever is going to be a top ten of Marvel Cosmic Universe Heroes. I've written a lot about the recent Marvel cosmic universe. It's a reboot of sorts in my mind, and I feel like I should help out some people with the past, just a bit. Marvel has recently done a sort of reboot with their old cosmic mythos. Nothing super serious, just a slight re-interpretation of characters that have been around for a while. And I wouldn't stretch that they've gone too far off the rails.


10
Peter Quill (Star-Lord)
Peter was a simple dope who gained powers through his birth-right, he had Ship, a sentient being who carted him around space. It was very similar to how the Doctor Who series runs now-a-days. His father as we now know was a king of the Spartax system, and had mated with a human of Earth (Check out Guardians of the Galaxy 0.1!). Peter is a clever and fun character he's like Peter Parker of space. He was the person who started the newest form of Marvel's present Guardians of the Galaxy during the Annihilation: Conquest saga.

9
Beta Ray Bill
First appearing in the year of my birth 1983, in issue 337 of Thor. This character moved on to be one of the coolest wielders of Mjolnir, and later Stormbreaker. With his famous swing at the the front cover of Thor books people still imitate this cover design to this day. Bill is pretty awesome, and you probably should look for him in other stuff, Like the Planet Hulk movie on Netflix. I just like his design, and his backstory of being able to go toe-to-toe with Thor regardless of not having Mjolnir. Also, he was found on a ship called Scuttlebutt.

8
Moon Dragon
She was a young child when she was first brought to Mentor, who is father to Thanos the mad Titan. Heather Douglas was the daughter of Drax before her and her father were sucked up in to space to meet their destiny. She was gifted with the power of telepathy, and so forth, she became the greatest of telepaths. Unfortunately she gained a side-effect through her training with monks, and became possessed by a real Moon Dragon, a fearful beast of death. This beast she actually came full-on with in Annihilation: Conquest. Also, she is totally in love with Phyla-Vell, "daughter of Mar-Vell, or the original Captain Marvel of the Marvel universe.

7
Gladiator
Leader of the imperial guard for the Shi-Ar empire. He was there for the rise and fall of Jean Grey becoming the newest host for the Phoenix and sub-sequentially Dark Phoenix. He has equal powers to Superman from the DC Universe, but has a bad ass Mo-hawk. During the War of Kings and Realm of Kings events he became emperor of the Shi-Ar. Who like Vulcan as emperor anyway?

6
Black Bolt
He is one of my all-time favorite characters from the pages of Fantastic Four. Blackagar Boltagon can level a mountain with but a whisper. His powers come from the Terrigen mists planted on Earth to speed up the evolution of humanity by the Kree. Someone who he eventually goes and conquers during the War of Kings event. His wife is Medusa, who is currently a member of the Earth based Fantastic Four in FF. Also, he's pretty awesome in Earth X. I really like his costume too...

5
Rocket Raccoon
Oh boy! A talking anthropomorphic Raccoon with a penchant for big guns and missile launchers?! Do I really need to say more? Okay he's best friends with a tree-like entity who can re-grow himself from a splinter, and does regularly. I also imagine him with an Australian accent, and it's raspy like he just finished a bottle of whiskey.

4
Phyla-Vell
Sadly she was only Quasar for a short time. I do like her being the embodiment/harbinger of death however. If you've watch the second season of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes cartoon then you are familiar with her being the quasar from the Guardians of the Galaxy episode. I like her Quantum Swords a lot. Biggest thing about her is her role and Moon Dragon's as lesbian lovers. And it didn't suck, or talk down to your intelligence.

3
Drax
Is he still a destroyer? Yes, very much so. He's a destroyer and damn good at it. He's space Wolverine essentially. He has a long and historic past, and was quite awful back in the day. Thank you Keith Giffen for making such huge alterations to this formerly "Superman Clone one billion in the Marvel universe". He has a major role involving Thanos. He is always the best answer to when Thanos has started running amok, as he was essentially bred and taught to be his assassin. Also, I'm a fan of Cammi, a no-nonsense companion of Drax.

2
Silver Surfer
Okay, so this guy named Galactus came to this guy Norrin Radd's place and totally destroyed it, then Norrin was like "no!" So, Galactus was like "I'm listening". Herald of Galactus Silver Surfer was born. He is by far of everyone's definition by normal standards "that guy from space in the Marvel comic books". It's hard to top him. Not many people really know a lot about him now though, and that kind of makes me sad. He was really big in the 70's and 80's. He even had a cartoon on Fox in the 90's. I loved that show, and was really my first full introduction to him and the Marvel Cosmic stuff. His best book is Silver Surfer: Requiem. Check it out.

1
Richard Rider (Nova)
You shouldn't be surprised by this really. I love the Nova Corps., and I think of them as a better version of the Green Lantern Corps. in DC. They're very similar, but the Novas don't rely on some emotional spectrum, just raw determination and skill. Rich is my favorite for mostly his involvement with the world-mind, and how it brought the Marvel's cosmic universe out of horrible funk in the mid 2000's. Just like a Nova he burst out and led the distant planet-hopping heroes into a new time. Nuff' Said.



Honorable Mentions: Adam Warlock and ROM Spaceknight

Hope you enjoyed this, and I really hope you got some inspiration to read about these characters or the recent major Marvel Cosmic events I've mentioned. They're really good, and I can't wait to see what the Marvel movie company does with these properties.

Thanos Rising: It is Imperitive that your read this.

So Thanos Rising issue 1 came out today, and I liked it tons. It's a prequel setting for how the mad Titan became the avatar of death, and near conqueror of the universe. It also, show a more estranged younger version of his father Mentor. First thing I want to say is, young Thanos is cute as a button. He doodles dead iguana things, but doesn't have the heart to perform a simple dissection in class. So he doesn't hold sociopathic tendencies, he just has an inquisitive and creative streak. In another scene he's in a cave and can't wait to look for gems! 

Yeah Fun Fact: Thanos is a Mutant

I really enjoyed his interaction with the other kids as well, he even has a crush on one! His brother Eros isn't seen, but is mentioned. I assume Jason Aaron is saving him for the next issue or a following one. And on Sui-San being a crazy psycho mom who wants to kill her son first chance she can get, because she sees death in his eyes. Well, I think it's up in the air if that is real, or her madness. Thanos mentions having dreams about that, and decides sleeping is not needed to avoid those said dreams. So, you could make a case that Sui-San his mother is the reason for his downward spiral... well that and Death. I'm not really sure if this is a reboot or just a re-imagination. I don't think Thanos' backstory has been touched on in quite some time. And with the way Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova has been re-invigorated, and focused more on the backgrounds it would seem that Marvel NOW for the Cosmic universe is pulling up it's britches for some major changes.

I'm gonna miss that mullet

Animal Man post Rot World arc is coming to a close, after Buddy Baker's son stopped his little sister from dying by giving up his own life, the Baker family is in turmoil. Buddy, just wants everything to go back the way it was before the Red the Rot, and all the events that have happened. His wife fights with him on what their daughter Maxine is, whether she's just a little girl like her mother wants or the avatar of the Red like her father has to accept she is. Buddy has a run in with the paparazzi, one of which gets a gorilla slap, and buddy is finally pushed over the edge. He's fed up with all this ridiculous god-speak. So he takes his anger fueled self to the Red itself, and demands they leave him and his family alone. This ends in disastrous fashion for poor Buddy. I have to ask if Animal Man can get anymore gripping/depressing after this last issue, and I hope the answer is yes.
I'll be back later this week touching on the first 4 issues of the Age of Ultron Mini-series. Until then, enjoy the rest of your week!

Suggested Listening: Crosseyed by the Bad Veins, thanks Mikey.

Final Crisis is Final

I was doing a read-along of Final Crisis from DC, written by Grant Morrison and drawn by J.G. Jones. I stopped doing this after the 3rd issue. The series has been over for almost five years if not more than. So I'm not honestly spoiling anything for anyone that cares. However, after finishing the series I honestly don't think I could write more about it than I already have, other than how it ended. Batman dies while shooting a gun at Darkseid with a Radion laced round(the same that killed Orion). Superman stops the anti-life equation by bringing a bunch of Elseworld Supes to stop Mandrakk who attempts to fill the void of a failing universe. Also, Superman uses some Miracle Machine granted to him by Braniac 5 from the 30th century, and reduces the entire population to petri dishes to save them after Wonder Woman somehow breaks her gasp from said equation after destroying he crappy mask and using her lasso of truth to break the bonds of the humans from Darkseid's control with truth. Convoluted as that may seem, it's much worse to describe in the blog. So I'm not bothering. I'd suggest reading it yourself, or looking up a summary of the events on a Wiki. Sorry, I guess I just picked the wrong thing to do a read-along with. This is not to say I want do another Read-Along, but it does say I will choose more wisely in the future. Also, this isn't to say it's poorly written, Morrison did a great job, and Jones did well conveying the plot. It would just be too taxing to do what I was doing with it.